Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. A former aide to Margaret Thatcher, Gardiner has served as a foreign policy adviser to two US presidential campaigns. He appears frequently on American and British television, including Fox News Channel, BBC, and Fox Business Network.

David Cameron should learn from Barack Obama’s disastrous apology tour

David Cameron’s decision to apologise for Britain’s imperial past during his visit to Pakistan was a highly regrettable mistake that he should avoid making again. Not only does it humiliate Britain on the world stage, but it also diminishes her standing as a great nation. The Prime Minister should look carefully at the damage done by President Obama’s frequent apologies on behalf of the United States, which have provoked a furious backlash and widespread derision at home, and have significantly weakened America’s standing abroad.

In his first year in office, Barack Obama succeeded in apologising for his country to nearly 3 billion people across Europe, the Muslim world, and Latin America, a staggering achievement. From Cairo to Strasbourg to Ankara, Obama made a point of dragging his own nation’s name through the mud. In France in April 2009 for example, the president famously condemned America’s “arrogance”, and the “sacrificing” of its values in the War on Terror, a theme he repeated in numerous addresses.

The Obama presidency swiftly became synonymous with a rejection of American exceptionalism, a willingness to appease America’s enemies and strategic competitors, and the downplaying of American global power. The end result has been a president who looks soft and naïve on the world stage, at the helm of an increasingly humble superpower that all too often fails to exert strong leadership.

As the PM himself will discover, once you start apologising for your country’s past, you erode your nation’s standing and power, and begin to project weakness rather than strength. It is a slippery slope that will significantly undercut British influence rather than enhance it. Like the United States, Great Britain has been a magnificent force for good in history, and her past should be a source of tremendous pride rather than embarrassment for British leaders as they travel the world.